After 52 years of television broadcasting in Nigeria, the onus is on Nigerian government to make the best of a full digital revolution that will kick off in 2015. VICTOR AKANDE, who was part of the recently held Digital Dialogue Conference in Johannesburg, reports.
IF the forum, which had journalists from all African countries, had taken place at the Cocoa House, Ibadan, and sponsored by a Nigerian government or private organisation, Nigeria could have been said to have kept pace with a precursor tradition, as creator of the first television station in Africa, with the establishment of the WNTV by the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo in 1959. But leading private broadcasters, Multichoice Africa facilitated the credit for South Africa, and the Sandton Convention centre, a stone-throw to the popular Nelson Mandela Square, provided a united front for African journalists to deliberate on the best possible ways of unlocking and exploring the digital migration process, which has begun around the world, including Africa.
The conference evaluated the timeline agreed by Europe and Africa that by June 2015, there will be a complete switch over from the current analogue broadcasting to digital. The implication, according to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) treaty, is that after June 2015, analogue television transmissions will no longer be protected from harmful interference caused by digital TV transmissions. In the same vein, analogue TV transmissions will not be permitted to interfere with digital TV transmissions.
The revolution has already begun, with countries like France, United States, United Kingdom, Sweden and New Zealand already advanced in their migration programmes. Finland and Mauritius have already switched off from analogue.
Experts have predicted that for a smooth transition to take place, proactive measures must be taken by the government, and stakeholders must be involved in the deliberation process. The question is that since South Africa, which began the process years back, is yet to overcome the complexity of the transition, what hope is there for other African countries that they will meet the deadline with just three years to go?
South African technology journalist, Aki Anastasiou, who was moderator of the forum, provided the background to the wizardry of communication technology and how Africa is fast taking advantage of the devices to improve its lot. Anastasiou, who noted that eight out of 10 fastest growing economies in the world are situated in sub Sahara, explained that new technologies like the digital migration can only benefit the people more by increasing. He said this to dismiss the fears in some quarters that new technologies are associated to job loss. “Agriculture and Tourism are hardly being touched in Africa. The digital advantage can only let the world know that Africa alone has the potential to supply the world with food,” said Anastasiou, who predicted that the world next internet technology entrepreneur will come from Africa within the next five to 10 years.
Vicki Myburgh of PriceWaterhouseCoopers took the lead in a series of presentations by seasoned facilitators at the conference. Her paper: Entertainment and Media Outlook 2012-2016: The End of the Digital Beginning, set the mood for this reporter whose concern is primarily on the content that will possibly feed the spectrum expected to be expanded by the digital technology.
According to Myburgh, digital innovation accounts for majority of the growth we are seeing in the industry. She observed that in 2011, spending on digital advertising and consumer formats increased by 17.6 %, compared with only a 0.6 % rise in non-digital, adding that digital’s share of total spending will grow from 28% in 2011 to 37.5 % in 2016, accounting for 67 % of all E&M spending growth to 2016. In a chart, she revealed that while there are several differences in each of the industry segments, one consistent driver is digital.
For Koenie Schutte, Managing Director at LS of SA Radio and Secretary, Southern African Digital Broadcasting Association (SADIBA), his brief was to take the participants through the process of migration from analogue to digital. He noted that the most important variables in the transition process to Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) are the consumer and the home environment.
He said that content is key in the transition process, as viewers have been promised more channels. He said no incentive to the consumer could be greater than great content. He observed that many TV households today use poor antennas and rely on marginal analogue TV reception. He said DTT will be on frequencies not necessarily covered by current antennas and new antenna, while installation may cost more than the Set Top Box (STB).
The next speaker, Ms Beth Thoren spoke on the importance of communication in the migration process, emphasising on the need for government to get stakeholders involved from the start. Thorem, who is the UK Digital Communications Director, said that adequate funding and a good communications strategy were the ingredients that gave the UK attempt a headway. She noted that UK became the first country in the world to switch to digital broadcasting this year, after seven years of educating the masses and laying out the communication messages.
She said the country was lucky because it had 200 million US dollars for the project, which was primarily funded by BBC, being the major donor. “We were able to switch over because apart from the funding, which is essential, we ensured that we were honest to the people about extra costs to them, we corrected and responded to all articles that were written about the campaign and we were firm about the date that we would be switching over,” said Thoren.
If the UK model is anything to go by, it would be observed that its government had evolved proactive and systematic line of actions to ensure that they are not caught napping when possible interference from neighbouring countries hit them.
The deregulation of broadcasting by General Ibrahim Babangida government through the Decree No. 38 of 1992 can only be said to have created better understanding between the government and the governed in Nigeria, but industry watchers in Nigeria are worried that the relationship between stakeholders and relevant agencies is not utilised well enough on the issue of digital TV migration.
Perhaps this shortfall in communication is not peculiar to Nigeria alone, as various governments in Africa do not seem to have engaged the stakeholders well enough on this digital revolution that is set to herald more channel choices and value to television viewers. But Multichoice, a big private sector stakeholder in the scheme, and the largest pay TV company in Africa, has set an enviable agenda based on its Social Responsibility objective. Multichoice began a test-run of the digital TV innovation in Nelson Mandela’s town of Soweto.
The households visited in Soweto confirmed their choice of more channels on the new device. Reason for this is not far fetched – the digital signals take up much less bandwidth than analogue signals. The result is that the DTT can broadcast up to 10 television channels in the same bandwidth – giving you the potential of many more channels to choose from. Another benefit that this gives the people of Soweto is that they are for the first time, able to access many free-to-air TV channels. They agreed that truly, the new innovation renders sharper picture, and better sound quality; such difference as it is between an old video cassette and a DVD.
Mnet Technical Director, David Hagen, observed that many players in the migration process still habour several unanswered questions. “Taking the South African experience, digital migration is proving to be extremely difficult and slow because people don’t know the fate of the television sets they own, where they will buy the devices, who the manufacturer will be, the cost implications and when it will actually start,” he said.
Hagen said he was sure the South African experience was similar to many other African countries’ experiences, where the roll out is very minimal because governments and regulators were still debating on the standard and technology of the devices they wanted to use.
He said that for a smooth transition into digital broadcast, there was need for content that isn’t currently on analogue- He noted that local content is vital and should be readily available.
A Nigerian Digital Migration Communication expert, Mr, Jenkins Alumona, does not think that Nigeria is ready for the digital migration and consequent switch off of analogue broadcasting by 2015. Put succinctly, Alumona’s response is, however, that of optimism. “Are we ready for migration? No. Can we be ready? Yes. But we have to move at a faster pace. At the current pace, the 2015 date is not attainable.”
Alumona, who was a participant at the Digital Dialogue Conference, expressed dissatisfaction over government’s effort on the project when he said: “government’s effort, if it exists, is not known to the general public. I understand some things are being done at the policy level, but nothing is visible yet.”
On the insinuation in some quarters that digitalisation may add to unemployment, the expert differed. “On the contrary; it should lead to more employment across several sectors. Freed spectrum may lead to more telecoms that will provide more employment. In the broadcast industry, more content will be required and by extension more jobs.”
Does he think that Nigerian broadcasters have enough content to fill this spectrum? Alumona said: “At this point, No! But Nigeria has the capacity and potential to provide the required content. Do not forget we have already proven that with the prodigious nature of Nollywood.”
On the two grades of the decoder for digital transmission, Alumona recommends the T2 for Nigeria when the time comes. “T1 is basically obsolete. Countries currently on T1 will eventually have to move to T2. The UK, which was one of the earliest to migrate, used T1 and they are already planning to migrate once again to T2. So it’s a no brainner. We need the very latest and T2 is the very latest. One of the DTT operators in Nigeria, GOTV already uses T2.”
Alumona, who believes that for certain categories, government has a responsibility to subsidise the decoders, spoke on the future that digital migration portends for pay TV business when he said: “The premium market will always exist and so the impact will be minimal.”
Alumona’s views further buttresses the insinuation that the government of Nigeria is under-estimating the huge complexities to be faced in implementing the migration and probably needs to first focus on pushing the NBC to action or make it more efficient .
